


Too Much To Ask For

by ephemeraltea (temporarily_obsessed)



Category: Batman - All Media Types, DCU
Genre: Gen, cuddles and the lack thereof, implied childhood neglect, talking to alley cats
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-01-19
Updated: 2014-01-19
Packaged: 2018-01-09 06:17:57
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 997
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1142491
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/temporarily_obsessed/pseuds/ephemeraltea
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The first time Dick hugs him, Tim goes stiff as an electrocuted man in a cartoon.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Too Much To Ask For

**Author's Note:**

> Okay, I knew there was going to be feels… but I didn’t quite expect this?? Also: first time writing for this fandom. I'm very afraid I screwed it up... so tell if I did. Tell me if I didn't. Just. Tell me?

Tim doesn’t have any memories of being cuddled when he was little, not really. He doesn’t even have a vague, sort of pink-tinged recollection that most kids seem to have of their early childhood. Instead, there’s harsh relief on the stack of books (alphabetized and the bottom right corners aligned) on his bedside table before he clicks the bedroom light off. The brassy shine of a doorknob turning as his mother closes the door cleanly behind her. The absent wave of his father’s hand as he says Guam’s weather is supposed to be nice tomorrow, when he and Janet land.

Well. Maybe that’s not quite true. He remembers a child minder holding his hand as he crossed the street once or twice. She grabbed his hand like she wasn’t thinking about it, like she couldn’t feel the warmth and wasn’t memorizing the curve of palm to palm, the soft loop of fingers to thumb, like Tim was doing. But when Tim considers it for a moment longer, he decides that’s not really cuddling. It was just more contact than he was used to- but not cuddling.

And there’s the cherished moment when the acrobat pulled him half onto his lap for the picture, arm on his back to reach his shoulder, complete with photographic evidence- but it only lasted a moment and from what Tim gathers, cuddling is supposed to be _at least_ three seconds. So that doesn’t count either.

Tim tells himself it doesn’t matter and that touching spreads germs anyway.

* * *

Chasing Batman and Robin with a camera doesn’t exactly lose the exhilarating edge of thrill after the first few months… but Tim does learn that there will be nights he won’t see them for several hours from the places he feels brave enough to get to, or even at all. And it’s not that it’s lonely work, either, because if Tim is used to anything at all, it’s being by himself.

But it is a little quiet. Well, not quiet _exactly_ \- there’s the honk of cars, the shouts of domestic bliss and tragedy, chatter and radios and dance beats pouring of doors decorated with stickers and multicolored lights- but it is quiet. Quiet just like Mommy and Daddy talking about the last trip, or the next one, or a business meeting- they aren’t talking to him, talking like he isn’t there with them. Or when the child minder, the one he has now, Ellen, thinks Tim’s in his room and can’t hear her turn on the radio and sing along. (She has a nice voice. Tim thinks that she should do that, for a job, instead of take of him. She’s better at singing.) Noises that make him feel like he might not exist at all, the sounds of other people living around him. So it’s quiet, and maybe for once Tim is in a position to change the silence.

There’s a cat- it’s brown and a little bit splotchy with black and gray and a kind reddish color, and it’s there pretty often on the nights Tim sneaks out. It looks at him, sometimes, and sometimes it doesn’t. Once or twice it meowed at him.

“I don’t think they’re coming this way tonight,” Tim says, and the cat doesn’t acknowledge him, even though it’s the first time he’s ever spoken to it. “Gotham’s a big city, I guess.”

He rambles a little bit. Tells the cat that he doesn’t like his Art teacher very much, because he leans a little too close to some of the girls in Tim’s class and has a look in his eye that scares Tim a little. Just a _little_. Talks about his friend- “I don’t think I should say his name, though- maybe like a secret identity? Like Batman and Robin and Superman-“ and what he learned yesterday in History.

When he looks back at the cat, it’s looking at him, too, and it’s a few feet closer than it was before. Tim hadn’t even heard it move. But then, cats are quiet. Tim stands up- a little wobbly, because he’s been sitting for a while- and cautiously extends a hand to touch the cat.

Tim gets scratches and a bite, though the teeth don’t break skin. He thinks that maybe cats are like his parents and don’t want to cuddle with him or touch him at all. This one was okay listening to him talk, though, so there’s that.

Ellen doesn’t notice the scratches.

* * *

A young, soft-eyed teacher’s aide hugs him once when he’s ten; she’s immediately called out to speak with in the hall with the teacher, and she never comes back to the classroom. Tim tries not to think about it. He does anyway, and often. She had blond hair.

* * *

The first time Dick ( _Nightwing, Robin, the first Robin, last Flying Grayson, Nightwing_ ) hugs him, Tim goes stiff as an electrocuted man in a cartoon. Dick loosens him arms without pause, and when Tim looks at his face, it’s a little bit shocked and a little bit hurt.

“You surprised me,” Tim says apologetically. _But not how you think._

“When B’s done training you, that’ll be a helluva lot harder to do,” Dick grins back. It’s forgiven and forgotten. By Dick.

Tim tries to forget how his heart nearly stopped. He needs to better than that.

* * *

Bruce doesn’t hug Tim, but that is definitely fine with Tim. Bruce is his _mentor_ , not his father, his _trainer_ , not his friend.

(And, well, it’s not like either of those are much for hugging, anyway.)

But after perhaps the best patrol in a long time, after some brutal gang wars have been taken down, and everything went smoothly- Batman does put his hand on Robin’s shoulder. It’s heavy, and there are too many layers between flesh (gauntlet, cape, tunic, armor) to feel any warmth, but Robin thinks that the exploding feeling in his chest is close enough.

It’s only for a few seconds, but that’s more than one.


End file.
